Dazzling Design in Miniature

We think that we have done very well with human
technology, packing information very densely on to computer hard
drives, chips and CD-ROM disks. However, these all store information
on the surface, whereas DNA stores it in three dimensions. It is
by far the densest information storage mechanism known in the universe.

Let's look at the amount of information that could be contained
in a pinhead volume of DNA. If all this information
were written into paperback books, it would make a pile of such
books 500 times higher than from here to the moon! The design
of such an incredible system of information storage indicates a
vastly intelligent Designer.

In addition, there is the information itself, which is stored on DNA, and transmitted from generation to generation of living things. There are no laws of science that support the idea that life, with all its information, could have come from non-living chemicals. On the contrary, we know from the laws of science, particularly in my own area of expertise, that messages (such as those that we find in all living things) always point back to an intelligent message sender. When we look at living things in the light of DNA, Genesis creation makes real sense of the scientific evidence.

Addendum to Creation magazine article: calculations
by Dr Gitt

The greatest known density of information is that in the DNA of living cells. The diameter of this chemical storage medium is d = 2 nm, and the spiral increment of the helix is 3.4 nm (1 nm = 10-9 m = 10-6 mm). The volume of this cylinder is V = h ´
d2 ´
p /4:

These are the genomes of more than thousand million people or one fifth of the population of the world.

Thirdly: A huge storage density is achieved,
manifold greater than can be attained by the modern computers. To
grasp the storage density of this material, we can imagine taking
the material from the head of a pin with a diameter of 2 mm and
stretching it out into a wire, which has the same diameter as a
DNA molecule. How long would this wire be?

If we are stretching out the material of a pinhead into a wire with the same thin diameter as a DNA molecule it would have a length more than 30 times around the equator.

These comparisons illustrate in a breath-taking
way the brilliant storage concepts we are dealing with here, as
well as the economic use of material and miniaturisation. The highest
known (statistical) information density is obtained in living cells,
exceeding by far the best achievements of highly integrated storage
densities in computer systems.

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Answers in Genesis is an apologetics ministry, dedicated to helping Christians defend their faith and proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ effectively. We focus on providing answers to questions about the Bible—particularly the book of Genesis—regarding key issues such as creation, evolution, science, and the age of the earth.